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Fried Chicken Fever

The last time I drove to the northerly reaches of Harlem to eat fried chicken, the neighborhood was so bleak and grimy I was nervous about parking my car on the street. Last week, almost ten years later, I went back, and I was anxious again. The area has become so lively and prosperous, I was afraid I'd never find a spot on the street to park my car.

My destination hadn't changed, nor had the man I was hoping to find there—Charles Gabriel, who in my estimation makes the best fried chicken in New York. His little storefront shop on Frederick Douglass Boulevard near 151st Street used to be called Charles' Southern Style Kitchen. Now he's calling it Charles' Country Pan Fried Chicken. He decided to change the name because he's always made a big thing of the oversized pan he uses, and he decided the utensil hadn't been getting the credit it deserves.

Something good happened to Gabriel earlier this year, although it didn't seem that way at the time. A car drove through the second of his two shops on the street, the one where he sells take-out. After that, he closed down his entire operation until repairs were done. Quite a few people, myself included, became worried that he was out of business permanently. So when he re-opened last month, he received lots of publicity, the kind he should have been getting all along.

I finally found a spot in front of a livery cab parked next to a fire hydrant. An overworked driver was napping inside. I made my way to Charles' place, a tiny spot with a Southern-style buffet and eight tables squashed together. It's the one-room schoolhouse of New York dining. The deal is $11.99 for all-you-can-eat.

It was late for lunch, and I was the only customer. Usually I love finding a buffet without a buffet line, but this time I was worried that Gabriel had slipped. A few months ago, after I'd heard about his place having that run-in with the car, I went to a restaurant where he's a partner, Rack and Soul, on 109th Street. The fried chicken there was nearly inedible. I took two bites and asked for my check.

The chicken at the newly named Charles' Country Pan-Fried was sitting in one of those warming devices that are supposed to keep meat tasting like it just came out of the fryer but rarely succeeds in doing so. The waitress—well, she was everything from hostess to cashier—assured me it had just come from the pan.

I got my chicken, a thigh to start, sat down, banished negative thoughts of Rack and Soul, and bit deep. I'm a Northerner. I suspect that what I consider great chicken might not be what folks from places that fry almost everything might think is great chicken, but I swear this was chicken that any cook could crow about.

The coating wasn't particularly thick, but it was luscious and crisp. It provided the same sort of inexplicable pleasure I get from the dark chocolate coating on a Dove bar. The meat was sweet, with a hint of spice, and absurdly juicy. I decided the secret had to be heritage fowls that spend their work days strolling happily in grassy pasturelands, munching fat bugs. The oil, a hint of which oozed from the coating, had surely been pressed from rare tropical grains or nuts. It was about then that Gabriel walked in.

I asked him the provenance of the chicken. "Perdue," he replied.

I asked him the secret of the exotic cooking oil. "Soybean," he replied.

He added that his flour was all-purpose.

In fact, everything about his pretty near perfect fried chicken perples me. Gabriel is from North Carolina. I've driven all over that state, and I don't recall ever seeing a chicken. I think the local joke starts, "Why did the pig cross the road?" As far as I know, all anybody eats there is barbecue.

I ate four more pieces—a wing, a thigh, a breast, a leg, and another thigh. That's what I call a balanced meal. I would have kept going if I didn't feel embarrassed. As I said, I was the only customer in the place, and the hostess had nobody to look at but me. I tried a few other items from the buffet line. The pulled pork was about what you'd expect from a guy from North Carolina, real good. The starches and veggies tasted soft and Southern.

With fried chicken poised to become the next big thing in New York, it's about time we paid more attention to the man who has been doing it better than anybody else for longer than anybody else. By the time I'd left, I'd figured out the secret of Charles Gabriel's chicken. It isn't the oil, the flour, or the birds. It's him, the man behind the pan.

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